Yet Another Annulment Question

[rick43235]

You say you do not need “healing”. Excellent! This puts you in a much better position than I was in, as this will make your application a piece of cake. I myself was very wounded, and it was therefore a very painful process to begin. If you feel 100% ok talking about what transpired in your first marriage, this is going to be easy.

Sorry to hear that you went through such a painful experience. That couldn’t have been much fun. In my case, my first marriage was many years ago. I have long since come to terms with what happened. What irritates me is the fact that the Church feels it has the right to scrutinize a marriage that was celebrated in a protestant church between two protestants. If I recall correctly, there wasn’t a Catholic in sight. But…I know that in order to make things right for my wife, I have to just hold my nose and deal with it.

Just because someone has a birthday party does not make it their birthday.

Hmmm…I like that. I’m not sure what the context will be, but I’m going to use that quote someday.

 

[agapewolf]

S What irritates me is the fact that the Church feels it has the right to scrutinize a marriage that was celebrated in a protestant church between two protestants.

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What irritates Catholics is that you think your first vows don’t matter. How come you get to decide that they don’t count?

The Church, in her charity, regards all marriages as valid until proven otherwise. It’s because of this that she must investigate if it was a true valid marriage. If you think the church doesn’t have a right, you are saying that the church shouldn’t think any marriage outside of the Catholic church is valid. THAT is what isn’t fair. She is holding you to your first vows. I honestly can’t get my head around the fact that people think that this is a burden rather than act of love. What if you were validly married at first…there is only ONE marriage, and one vows for life.

 

[SpaceNeedle]

Sorry to hear that you went through such a painful experience. That couldn’t have been much fun. In my case, my first marriage was many years ago. I have long since come to terms with what happened. What irritates me is the fact that the Church feels it has the right to scrutinize a marriage that was celebrated in a protestant church between two protestants. If I recall correctly, there wasn’t a Catholic in sight. But…I know that in order to make things right for my wife, I have to just hold my nose and deal with it.

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I am glad you’re going to do it. I do absolutely understand where you’re coming from, but from my own exprience it seems that the Tribunal takes a lot into consideration…including our religious practices at the time of marriage, or lack thereof.

 

[Seatuck]

Well, we are very happily married as it is, so I don’t anticipate much in the way of “healing.” I have, however, dusted off the application and it is now on my desk rather than hidden away in a filing cabinet. A step in the right direction, I guess.

Thank you for your thoughts.

You’re welcome. I pray everything works out well for you both.

It might help if you understood the church respects your right as a protestant to make a permanent vow of marriage. The church believes that you did so. Now she needs you to show her why that is an error. Scripture is pretty clear on the if you divorce and remarry you commit adultery thing. There can be no divorce except under a particular circumstance as Jesus said. We just need you to lay that out for us. Not exactly us but a few church witnesses. What about that marriage vow was faulty so that no marriage took place? Because if a marriage took place you have no choice but to be faithful to it.

Perhaps these will help you understand the churches position.

catholic.com/library/Permanence_of_Matrimony.asp

catholic.com/thisrock/2006/0610btb.asp

 

[Vico]

Well, even if I got an annulment and our marriage was convalidated, we still would not be a “married Catholic couple” - I’m not Catholic. And while I understand that the Church does not recognize the validity of our marriage, to say that we’re “unmarried” - well, that’s just silly.

I suppose I did not express that well. I see what you mean, you would be a mixed marriage. But, as for your Catholic spouse, she is not a married Catholic but rather she has a civil marriage. To clarify, you have not received the sacrament of marriage that you would with convalidation. This may be a substantially different covenant that what you agreed to before. I base this on what you wrote “…nor do I believe that a convalidation will make us any more married than we are today.”

As you stated there are three good reasons to finish the process:

1. “My wife is from another country where almost everyone is Catholic, and the fact that she is Catholic is very much a part of how she identifies herself.”
2. “…my wife and I got married in a civil ceremony with the idea of having our marriage “blessed by the church” when we could get the requirements sorted out.”
3. “…I suspect that she would prefer to be in the good graces of the Church.”

Yet, you ask:
“So…is it worth it to go through the annulment process just “as a form of convenience to stay in good graces with the church?””

As you have stated, you want to make good on your original intentions and to respect your wife as a Catholic, for which it is necessary to convalidate, for which you need the annullment.